502 THIRSK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. [July, 



"5. E. majuscula. Sepals subrotundate, ovate^ slightly hispid. 

 Silicles fully half as long as the pedicels^ oblong-elliptic^ narrowed 

 slightly especially below. Styles long. Seeds about 40 in a cell. 

 Leaves grey^ oblong-obovate^ cuneate at the base, subentire or 

 furnished with large teeth, clothed with a thick coating of short 

 hairs. Petioles short. Habit of growth stronger than in the 

 others, petals and silicles larger. 



" If I understand these properly, as represented in Britain, I 

 must confess myself unable to separate them specifically. E. 

 majuscula, as submitted to M, Jordan and by him authenticated, 

 is common here in fallow fields ; and the ordinary form, that grows 

 upon walls and dry hillocks, ascending from the coast level to 

 550 yards on the main limestone scars above Askrigg, in Gore- 

 dale, and to 800 yards on the rocks on the west side of Micklefell, 

 in Teesdale, seems to me to differ from this only by the smaller 

 size of all its parts and the smaller number of its seeds, which 

 are mostly about 20 in a cell. The shape of the silicles is liable 

 to considerable variation. They are mostly about twice as Tdng 

 as broad ; but in a plant agreeing Avith the comnjon one in its 

 leaves and the number of its seeds, which I noticed this spring 

 on a wall near Ilkley, in Wharfdale, they are three times as long 

 as broad. E. brachycarpa is much more readily distinguishable, 

 and of this also I have procured authenticated British examples. 

 It grows abundantly on a wall in front of the ' Hare and Hounds' 

 public-house, at Scawton, a little village on the slope of the 

 Hambleton Hills, eight miles east of Thirsk. A supply of spe- 

 cimens from this station is ready for distribution. Dr. Carring- 

 ton sends it from Burntisland, in Fifeshire. From what one 

 may gather from Jordan and Koch, Draha prtecow of Stevenson 

 (Mem. Soc. Mosc. torn. iii. p. 269) scarcely differs from brachy- 

 carpa unless by its shorter pedicels. A plant which Miss Giffbrd 

 has forwarded, in different stages of growth, from Minehead 

 Warren, in Somersetshire, has the upper pedicels scarcely twice 

 as long as the silicles, but in other respects agrees with brachy- 

 carpa, as represented by French examples and the Scawton 

 plant. Beichenbach quotes, under prcecox, Draba spathulata 

 (Hopp. in St. H. 60), and, according to Koch, this spathulata 

 has elongated pedicels. I observe that, amongst modern French 

 authors, Boreau and Bourguignat both register prascox as a dis- 

 tinct species : not so Grenier and Godron. As represented in 



